There was reason to wait, fuss and refresh the news feed for any news surrounding James Clavell’s latest adaptation of Shogun.
FX reading is fantastic. Patience was rewarded, and persevering through the ten episodes paid off with the satisfaction of having watched the best-filmed classic novel mini-series ever made.
The trophy for the taming of great literature has gone into the hands of “Shogun” and it will take a titanic filmmaker to wrest it from his grasp.
The team of the series did brilliantly in all indicators: adaptation of the script, sets, cinematography, acting. They fully committed to quality and were uncompromising until the finish.
Watch the Shogun trailer here:
They came in with a bang, lined up with James Clavell and showed us the scope of his imagination in Shogun exactly as it should be: stunning at every turn.
Already with its premiere, the series gave requests for an epic on the scale of “Game of Thrones”, but with each of its subsequent chapters, the production surpassed itself.
It managed to immerse viewers in the written and unwritten protocol of feudal Japan and force them to feel, understand and evaluate what they saw in a dignified way.
The characters were given a fascinating trajectory of development, and of the entire palette of characters, John Blackthorne, Mariko-sama and Yoshi Toranaga stood out the most.
Three medieval players who strive to stand on the right side of power.
The prism through which the show chose to expose the core of John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) is the familiar cathartic journey – from barbarian to civilized man.
The Englishman arrives in Japan with zero hygiene habits and a value system in which duty and honor are empty concepts.
But over the course of the episodes, his mentality gradually moves towards Japanese manners, turning him into a hybrid being, the result of the cross between two cultures.
This happens so quietly and unannounced that even Blackthorne himself does not feel how his stay in Japan is slowly taking him away from his roots.
The separation from his homeland is visible in the episode in which the pilot meets a sailor from his old crew and finds it difficult to hide his disgust with the person he has long felt as his own.
Blackthorne is the middle of the two polar worlds, without fully belonging to either.
The card in the character of the king of the chessboard – Yoshi Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) is also tangled. The strategist, whose plans and the people closest to him pull out with a knife.
A true enigma that has become the emanation of the Japanese legend that each person has three hearts: one for the public, one for his loved ones and a secret heart that exists hidden from everyone’s eyes.
The development of Toranaga’s image beats to the rhythm of this myth. The daimyo dissolves before our eyes like a matryoshka doll and serves us twist after twist with his secret tactics.
His behavior is proof that the most intriguing battles are fought not on the battlefield, but at the strategy table. In this light, Toranaga looks like a thoroughbred leader.
Not someone who is too good or too evil.
Interestingly, throughout “Shogun” the retired regent does not bring out any extreme emotions in the audience. Whether to sympathize with him or to hate him cannot be precisely determined.
He is an enigma, but at the same time a pivot whose decisions cannot be ignored lightly. Leader par excellence.
Speaking of Toranaga’s stealth cuts, a few lines of admiration must also be given for the way the series presented the series’ climax. The most sublime moment was so veiled that we learned of it only after the daimyo himself laid the cards on the table and told us in plain text that the expected attack on Osaka had already taken place.
For the first time in a series, the climactic moment comes without anyone knowing, which probably causes some confusion.
I also kind of wanted to see the infamous Sekigahara battle where Toranaga and Ishido cross swords, but I didn’t miss the saved action because I got an adequate causality of the events.
The theme of the Shogun series is ultimately one of subjugation to power, a motif that is extremely beautifully referenced with the enchanting Japanese nature.
I write a full six on the sets that managed to transport us back in time and fill our eyes with the nature and minimalism of the Japanese landscape.
When we get down to the bottom, however, we see that everything revolves around ranking in the patriarchal hierarchy. Some want to be in charge, others – in the close orbit around the leader, and still others, like all the women in the series for example, simply survive and adapt to changing conditions.
“Shogun” is among the most astonishing and life-filled series that have managed to recreate the theme with an expression of respect and understanding of James Clavell’s original.
It is a tribute to the power of literary tradition, but also modernized enough to be understood by a broad audience of the 21st century.
The story opens our eyes to the harsh reality in Japan at that time and makes us empathize with the unknown corner of the world, which, despite its remoteness, never ceases to fascinate us.
The series “Shogun” is available on the streaming platform Disney+
THE VERDICT FOR “SHOGUN”: 5 out of 5 coffees
